RustyNails
Member
You seem to be an intelligent and inquisitive mind...why limit your understanding through an article or two? Just google "Seerah" on youtube and google, and you will find exhaustive information.
What ISIS Really Wants (The Atlantic)
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sneakydomo
Banned
I read this article before I saw this thread. It is a long article but worth the time. I can tell many commenting in this thread have not read the entire article. It is nuanced and doesn't say what a lot of people here are claiming. Very lazy, maybe pause from being a forum warrior for 20 minutes and engage with what the author is actually writing before you vomit your preconceptions all over the internet.
Quoted from page 226 in that free ebook Maninthe mirror posted:
He sounds like a wonderful slavedriver, arguing that temporary slavery is fine as long as you aren't a dick to them, and you get bonus points with God when you free them.
I mean, slaves a the source of your power is messed up, right?
It's so lame to dismiss a civilization as a bunch of "desert dwellers". Some dog whistling right there.
I'm not the one who made the 'cotton candy' bullshit comment. I'm not the one who keeps on bringing up distorted out of conext factoids about the Prophet's life with the implication that Daesh/ISIS types are the true followers and I'm not.
Here's the logical truth. There's only two possibilities here.
1. Islam is the one true faith.
In this case only God gets to decide who is truly being a Muslim and who isn't. Not Princeton scholar Bernard Haykel and not anybody else.
2. Islam isn't the one true faith.
In this case Islam is whatever any Muslim thinks it is.
In neither case do people get to decide that Daesh and ISIS are more Muslim than I am.
Now if you go by #1 (as I do) then there is a very real conversation about what God actually really wants and that's why when Muslims call each other 'Not true Muslims' it's actually an incredibly potent discussion happening and nothing to do with being 'apologists'. To have people going by #2 interject with "Yeah those crazy violent fuckers are the real Muslims and you peaceful types don't know what your own faith is" is depressing and disheartening largely because of how illogical it is and how it prevents any real conversation as it devolves into people defending themselves rather than grappling with the real issue which is the ISIS types.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
I don't want to get into "the true interpretation of Islam is great/awful" stuff, but there's some great equivalencies in the New Testament here.
Ephesians 6:5 said:
Alternatively:
I don't think that ignoring their muslim doctrines is a pertinent strategy, as outlines on the article. They are managing to attract frustrated young muslims from around the world, so they must be onto something. To dismiss them as fanatics who don't understand Islam seems to me pointless.
It's not hard to figure out what they want: to spread their caliphate as much as possible.
Have you read even the article this thread is about Crab? If so, what did you think about it?
I don't want to get into "the true interpretation of Islam is great/awful" stuff, but there's some great equivalencies in the New Testament here.
Yeah, and I already said that christians today are also cotton-candy for conveniently ignoring such hardcore passages.
Then you're appointing yourself the final arbiter on what it means to be a 'True Muslim' or a 'True Christian' and that's nonsense.
No I am not.
I am, saying the holy books are flawed messes that people need to rationalize/ignore some parts because they are so outdated.
soul creator
Member
lol, every religious believer does this, it's not something unique to mean old atheists
American slaveholders and abolitionists were both Christians.
And when I speak to them I bring up the lack of logic to them as well. Over there the focus is more on possibility #1 and pointing out that they have no idea how God will judge them until y'know God judges them so how can they get off with being preachy and holier than thou on everyone else and not show some god damn humility.soul creator said:lol, every religious believer does this, it's not something unique to mean old atheists
Ah right, I'm a 'cotton candy' Muslim but no judgement is being made on who is really a Muslim and who is not. That's some nuance that I am completely failing to recognize apparently.
Hari Seldon
Member
The solution here seems pretty obvious lol.
I read "cotton-candy" in the article as having rose tinted glasses regarding Islam.
What did you think it meant?
RustyNails
Member
He understood the social evils of slavery, and made manumitting them the highest form of Islamic obefience. He personally freed 63 slaves in his life. Aisha freed 67. Abu Bakr freed 100s. Abd Rahman Ibn Awf used to free dozens of slaves at a time. They all did this by purchasing them and setting them free. Abu Bakr used to go to the locations where slaves were tortured, purchase them and set them free, the most famous being Bilal ibn Rabah, the abyssinian slave that was close to death from being tortured. When the news reached Muhammad that Zaid was a free man sold as a slave to khadija, he gave Zaid the choice to go back to his father and uncle. When Zaid refused, prefering Muhammad over his father, he immediately set him free and named him Zaid ibn Muhammad, honoring him with all the rights bestowed in inheritance.
My point is, the history is not black and white as you may believe. Once you learn more about the history and life, you will get a fuller picture rather than a bit here and bit there.
tfur
Member
Okay, but in my opinion:
This is why the direct words from the quran that inform followers to kill infidels will continue. By definition #1, they have let "God (gets to) decide" by following written word. This also logically boxes you into letting others define Islam as they wish, as long as they follow words written in the quran. Option number 1 actually is what empowers these groups to kill, since they are following Gods word.
Maninthemirror
Banned
did you read what it says:
They are your brothers and the source of your wealth. God had given you temporary authority over them when they were your slaves. God also said the best of men are those who free the slaves. It is an obvious statement that the Arab economy was run on work done by slavery, the most viable option was to first treat them as equals, then free them and in that time your labor will be done by every you, your ex slave and now your brother to build the economy. the solution was to slowly ween society away from this sin without snapping it away and collapsing the economy so that 1. people LEARN to treat everyone as equal instead of being forced to in an instant. 2. people keep their livelihood in the new manner of brotherhood. The process was a step by step removal of this which God saw as the best way people begin to learn to love those who were their slaves and treat them as equal instead of having a lifelong disdain by suddenly snapping them away and creating two segments one of ex slaves and one of ex-slave owners
How hard is that to understand...
I mean, even if he treated them nicely and released every last one of them, it is still a revolting practice that he endorsed and gave advice on how to do it "correctly".
ISIS can very well base their use of captive pagans as slaves for a few years by using these notions. Just like a crazy christian nation could one day use those bible passages once more.
Maninthemirror
Banned
read above
I think it meant 'not really a Muslim' with the ISIS type fucks having a better grasp of the 'legal and historical' requirements of Islam.
Alright, at the very least you are putting the IMO in there which is far more than many do.
Now we can go OT and talk about the particulars of the faith.
Where in the Quran does it say to kill infidels?
Croatoan
They/Them A-10 Warthog
How long until we have self described Christian Crusaders heading to the middle east to fight the Islamic Caliphate?
It makes me so damn angry that religion could screw up the world for everyone. I mean, I have nothing against people who practice (I am spiritual as well) but thinking that your Harry Potter is better than someone else's Katniss Everdeen, and actually killing over it, is fucking insane.
Don't give me the "They fucking believe its all true line" either. Because if they really do, i mean really really do, then they have to accept that their religion is one of death (both Christianity and Islam) and that they have blood on their hands by association. The rest are just hypocrites that are in it for what the believe is a train pass to paradise. Maybe the books themselves don't call for death, but the books do cause death. There is no arguing that.
Christianity itself is responsible for millions of deaths in the name of Jesus and God (though that has tailed off in modern times).
Muslims have the same morbid past but have extremists who continue to carry on barbaric practices today in the name of Allah.
Is there some game I am missing? Is there a real winner between your Gandolf and my Santa Clause? Shouldn't religion be a personal thing that you experience with your loved ones in the privacy of your own home and not shoved down societies throat whether they want it or not?
I guess not because it looks the winner will be the religion that has the highest death toll once they finally achieve this Apocalypse they both seem to want so much.
I'm tired of the blood, I am tired of seeing these headlines and I feel powerless to do anything about it.
Sorry for the rant, reading the slavery stuff finally set me over the edge I guess.
It makes me so damn angry that religion could screw up the world for everyone. I mean, I have nothing against people who practice (I am spiritual as well) but thinking that your Harry Potter is better than someone else's Katniss Everdeen, and actually killing over it, is fucking insane.
Don't give me the "They fucking believe its all true line" either. Because if they really do, i mean really really do, then they have to accept that their religion is one of death (both Christianity and Islam) and that they have blood on their hands by association. The rest are just hypocrites that are in it for what the believe is a train pass to paradise. Maybe the books themselves don't call for death, but the books do cause death. There is no arguing that.
Christianity itself is responsible for millions of deaths in the name of Jesus and God (though that has tailed off in modern times).
Muslims have the same morbid past but have extremists who continue to carry on barbaric practices today in the name of Allah.
Is there some game I am missing? Is there a real winner between your Gandolf and my Santa Clause? Shouldn't religion be a personal thing that you experience with your loved ones in the privacy of your own home and not shoved down societies throat whether they want it or not?
I guess not because it looks the winner will be the religion that has the highest death toll once they finally achieve this Apocalypse they both seem to want so much.
I'm tired of the blood, I am tired of seeing these headlines and I feel powerless to do anything about it.
Sorry for the rant, reading the slavery stuff finally set me over the edge I guess.
RustyNails
Member
He did not endorse slavery. Rather, he said people under your power have rights over you. They have the right to wear same clothes as you, eat and drink the same food as you, marry whoever they desire and you have no right to even slap them, let alone whipping. He also said they can attain the highest religious and political power in the land, just like free man. Bilal was the first Muezzin of Islam, and the Mamlukes were the first slave dynasty that ruled the caliphate. The point is though setting slaves free is the ideal, not enslaving. Besides all of that, it is established through 'Ijma that such type of bondage is no longer needed, and 'ijma is a wholly Islamic doctrine which you cannot ignore.
None of this is mentionned in your ebook.
He made means to free slaves, said there were heavenly rewards for doing so, but maintains that slavery should be temporary in a persons life, and says how to treat them well.
Is there maybe another source you can offer than the ebook?
My interpretation is that since it's made abundantly clear in multiple ways that freeing slaves is a good thing than full emancipation is the logical end result and the best of things. Yours differs I guess?
RoadHazard
Gold Member
You know what it all comes down to? That #2 is the truth. There's no sane reason for anyone to believe that Islam is the one true faith. None. Just about the only people who do believe that were brought up (i.e. indoctrinated) in that particular faith. Shocker! Yeah, there are exceptions where people have converted, but generally it's the case that religious people are convinced that THE RELIGION THEY HAPPENED TO BE BROUGHT UP IN SOLELY BECAUSE OF WHERE THEY WERE BORN is the one and only truth. If you can't see how utterly ridiculous that is as a basis for what's "true" you are not a rational and reasonable human being. But that goes with the whole being religious thing, of course.
As for your claim that people are saying ISIS are true Muslims and you aren't... who here is saying that? What I (and most others with similar arguments, I'm sure) am saying is that just because their interpretation is absolutely horrible and yours isn't, that doesn't in any way indicate which one is more "true". The key here is that we're talking about INTERPRETATIONS of something incredibly vague and often contradictory, like most/all religious texts. Almost certainly no interpretation is true, but even disregarding that I don't see why I should just accept your claim of knowing what "true Islam" is. Now, that DOES NOT mean I'm saying they are right and you are wrong. Of course they're not right. And you aren't either. But that's my opinion.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Yes, but why are they frustrated? This is what you're missing. You're just concluding that Islam is the problem because people are doing bad things and claiming Islam as their motivation. This line of analysis isn't very stong. There are many interpretations of Islam, and there are reasons why particular people are drawn to particular interpretations over others. This is important, because if we know why the people in ISIS are drawn to the interpretation of Islam they're drawn to, then we can actually solve the problem: get rid of the thing that makes them want to join an extremist organization and suddenly that extremist organization has no members.
I mean, look at it this way. Lots of what ISIS is doing is absolutely horrific. They're beheading people, burning people to death, dropping people from buildings. It's hard to think of things intuitively more evil than this. People are pretty heavily programmed not to be okay with these things. The United States has to have a huge expensive military training programme to make sure their soldiers are psychologically capable of killing. If I was looking at Islam and the different interpretations and was thinking "I find the core principles compelling, but which version should I commit to?", committing to the version that features genocidal maniacs would probably not be the first thing to come to mind.
I've read the article. I think it is fairly poor, littered with both factual errors and poor or just insubstantiated arguments. ISIS does not rule an area larger than the United Kingdom. ISIS is certainly not a hermit kingdom; there is a steady influx of refugees from ISIS areas into Turkey, Syria and Jordan because most of the territory ISIS controls is desert and has porous borders because there are no major hubs from which to exert territorial control. There is a reasonably high number of defections as members largely from Western backgrounds find out that being a member of ISIS is not pleasant and not as they imagined. Much of ISIS has background in relatively well scrutinized organizations like al-Qa'ida. Foreign policy analysts are not ignorant about ISIS. The reason the general public are ignorant about ISIS is because the quality of journalism on the subject is atrociously poor - sensationalism sells.
The article over-emphasizes the stated motivation of ISIS and justification they use for actions. Saying ISIS is incapable for change for religious reasons is like saying that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is incapable of having dictatorships for constitutional reasons. The DPRK explicitly uses democraticness and egalitarianism as a means to justify the Kim family's power; nobody says 'damn, the problem here is democracy and people's republics', they recognise that the DPRK is the product of a particular elite that has every incentive to remain with power and wealth and uses a particular ideology that has popular legitimacy to provide it. It's not even completely clear that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is genuinely the leader of ISIS and not a fabricated front like his predecessor, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, was. When your caliph is fictional there's a reasonable probability genuine faith is not your primary concern.
Maninthemirror
Banned
It's common sense knowledge among more than Just 1 ebook which is why its best to educate by reading
Quran , valid hadith, understsnding the logic why slaves were asked instead of suddenly banning them knowing what was Arab history at that point and the dependence of economy of the slave economy before Islam. That's the beauty of islam where it pushed people to love people who they were previously hating on
I think it would have been easier to think that if he went all Abe Lincoln and emancipated them all. Instead, he argued they were the source of your power, but you shouldnt abuse them.
And Rustynails I will read more on Ijma, the wikipedia entry seems like a mess by specifying every single sectd interpretation of what it means (consensus at the time of the prophet vs modern consensus).
Does it mean that for some, through Ijma, Islam is constantly reformed to accept nee realities? Like some day, homosexuality could be deemed normal if enough scholars accept it?
Again, nobody is.
You're claiming takfir is not an Islamic concept?
In any case, the line should be 'in this case in my interpretation of scripture, God gets to decide...'
Again, nobody was, not anyone here, not the author of the text. The author said that when you claim they are not muslim because it does not align with your idea of what a muslim could be, do you have rose tinted glasses. Of course this is debatable, you'd have to somehow argue that under no circumstances would killing apostates and strict shariah be permissable in Islam.
The only way your dichotomy would logically make sense if it would be:
1. Azih is the only arbiter of what the true islam is.
2. Azih is not the arbiter.
And you would be an adherent of one.
Well, good thing I never said Islam is the problem then.
I said the Koran seems to be a part of the problem, seeing it is immutable and contains teachings of 7th century men.
By saying these aren't ancient Islamic notions that are being abused, is absolving the Koran of it's role as a warrant to perpetuate outdated customs.
MisterFalcon
Member
Iraq and Syria combined are 683.000 square kilometers while the United Kingdom is 241.000 square km. Looking at a map ISIS controls about 40% of those two countries which is more then the area of the UK. Vast areas of that territory are uninhabited desert but it's not factually incorrect to say ISIS territory is larger then that of the UK.
RustyNails
Member
I'll be honest and tell you that I don't fully know the intricacies of 'ijma, as it requires a study of fiqh and knowledge. All I know is that concubinage and slavery were outlawed by 'ijma at the end of 19th century by the standing Ulema. I also know that homosexuality was legal in Ottoman Empire way, way before Europe deemed it moral.
tfur
Member
Chapter 9 verse 5 is pretty bad. Chapter 2 verse 191 etc.
I would imagine this is the excuse for killing people, since it says to kill people. These groups are operating withing these written words. Are they not using this as a mandate?
So, you still have not answered. Is there a hadith or something that carves out and reasoning around these verses or not?
Mr. Giggles
Member
Yes it is.
Although other posters have responded in my absence, so i'll not beat a dead horse
That doesn't mean much, seeing as Greece is in Europe. Besides, the current 'caliph' doesn't recognize the ottoman caliphate.
Then you agree with me that it's nonsense for Princeton Scholar Bernard Haykel or Sam Harris or whoever else to try and arbitrate who's a 'True Muslim' or who's a 'Cotton Candy Muslim' then? That's where I jumped into this whole thing so I'm glad that we can agree on that point at least.
Thanks for calling me irrational and unreasonable. I'm sure we're going to have an open and respectful dialogue from here on out and there won't be any completely understandable defensiveness on my part. Not at all.
Princeton Scholar Bernard Haykel.. Sam Harris has plenty of times in the past. A lot of people in this thread who are quoting bits and bobs from the Quran that seem at first glance to support ISIS types and not peaceful types.
Weird that's my entire point and I"m going off on the people who have come down on the fence that the ISIS types are definitely more true and peaceful ones are definitely not like Princeton Scholar Bernard Haykel... Sam Harris and others.
Never did this. Where did I do this? Who are you talking to?
RustyNails
Member
It means everything. The Ottoman Caliphate was the last legitimate Caliphate, which was foretold in hadiths. The current caliphate is just make-believe. No single serious country, body, group or even a jurist has accepted ISIS as legitimate. You need the Baya of all the Muslim peoples' (through representatives) in order to establish one. Second, you pretty much need the custodianship of Masjid al Haram in Makkah to derive legitimacy. No serious Caliphate has existed in past or can exist without the guardianship of Makkah and Medina. Al Baghdadi can call it the federation of interplanetary systems, but it does not make it such. Again, it goes back to what is right and wrong.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
Islam is simultaneously so important to the lives of billions but it has no influence on them, got it.
If ones writes a creed that can be interpreted both positively and negatively, the negatives could help contribute to some negative outcomes.
"American exceptionalism" sure could also be interpreted in a lot of different ways and several of them positive... And it also contributed to the genocide of Native Americans. That those consequences could be encouraged by the creed makes the creed very open to criticism.
Since nobody can possibly follow any religious text 100%, you have to kind of go by what people identify themselves as.
That doesn't mean everyone who identifies the same way believes the same thing.
We are now in a world where people believe anyone can choose what gender to identify with, but not their religion.
That doesn't mean everyone who identifies the same way believes the same thing.
We are now in a world where people believe anyone can choose what gender to identify with, but not their religion.
The problem comes to translation and dissecting the meaning of what the quran says vs what the hadith say. A lot of the issues in the muslim community as a whole(global issues) is that we have moved away from quran as the main source of "instructions" to hadith which are just life stories of caliphates.
Some of the other muslims here might disagree with me but I can say based on my limited knowledge that 90% of muslims aren't really muslims because the teachings of their islamic scholars are NOT based out of the quran says and that its based out of hadith and using hadith to try to interpret the quran. When you move away from the main source of what we believe to be gods commands to what the first muslims did after the prophet died (hadith) you run into issues that we have now a days. a PERFECT example of this is apostacy. It is clear (IMO) in the quran that human beings don't get to take action against apostates and that it is left to god to take action but because hadith exist and a lot of the religious leaders translate and interpret the two together they have come away with the idea that apostasy should be a crime (I wouldn't even label it as a crime) punishable by death.
so to answer your comment as to admission being the first step to stopping the problem I think what should happen as the first step is to admit that what we are currently seeing around the world is not the TRUE form of islam, at least IMO.
This is a terrible argument, cause it follows that, given the right historical/economical conditions, Islam may say that slavery is ok again.
Maninthemirror
Banned
its a terrible argument for you. because it demolishes your view that Islam promotes slavery. sorry bro, it doesnt.
Not forbidding and establishing guidelines for it, is almost as bad as promoting it.
We do not know what divine wisdom looks like, but if it doesn't start with "slavery is forbidden", we should reject it.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
You're conflating "Islam" and "ISIS' version of Islam" again. Given the tradition of the Middle East, Islam as a general set of creeds, some of which have very little in common, is likely to influence them, yes. ISIS version of Islam, as a very specific creed, that has very little established history in the region and draws upon proselytization firmly rooted in the social media era, was not at all likely to influence them. Jump back in time to about 1965 and the West was worried about pan-Arabism and the emergence of an Arab nation-state aligned with the Soviet Union. They positively leapt at encouraging religious conservatives as a means of restraining secular rationalists. The arc from 1965 to now is certainly not a likely one.
This supposes that people pick interpretations at random. People don't. People have reasons for picking particular interpretations. There are reasons which motivate them to pick bad ones. These are the systemic problems that allow ISIS to exist.
It makes specific versions of American exceptionalism open to particular forms of criticism, yes. It would be stupid to say that because some people used American exceptionalism to excuse genocide that if we just got rid of the concept of American exceptionalism, people wouldn't have committed the genocide. They wouldn't. People are great at coming up with ideologies that justify them in pursuing ends they wanted regardless - see Britain's white man's burden, Mao's revolutionary warfare, etc. Without American exceptionalism, some other apparent excuse to wipe out the native Americans would have occurred simply because there were people in the United States who didn't particularly care about the welfare of native Americans, wanted land because it was immensably profitable in the railway and farm era, but felt some cognitive dissonance at the fact they were killing people and therefore came up with some ideology as to why it was therefore acceptable to do so.
Maninthemirror
Banned
lets see chapter 9 shall we
You can see from this sequence that this killing was only in that time as a part of defense against the aggressors who were non-Muslims and constantly attacking Muslims and their allies. Muslims were specifically asked to have a treaty with those disbelievers of Islam who were NOT hostile against Muslims.
This is proven once again with the other verse you qouted
answered here:
http://www.trueislamispeace.com/answeringcritics/
plus these sequence of versus are only applicable against those who attack your faith specifically because of faith, not for political reasons or any other reasons, for faith alone. and as today islam cannot be eliminated and there is no army attacking Islam specifically (except Daesh which is technically attacking islam) these verses are not even applicable in this day and age. if however a big army sought out the destruction of religion in the name of religion, then this would apply
Maninthemirror
Banned
wait. slowly removing slavery to get people to love people along with weening away is as bad as slavery? what a twisted logic.
I remember when Rezla Aslan became famous. He went on Fox News and this lady asks him what would make him, a Muslim, qualified to discuss Christ and Christianity. Rezla started listing out his qualifications.
In the article a Princeton scholar speaks on Islam, and a bunch of people are up in arms saying "who's he to speak on Islam"?
In the article a Princeton scholar speaks on Islam, and a bunch of people are up in arms saying "who's he to speak on Islam"?
That's easy to say for you cause you were not a slave during the centuries in which islamic regimes practiced slavery.
Does this "slow-removal-of-slavery-as-long-as-love-is-promoted-is-good" idea mean, that if, say, the american south pre civil war had adopted islamic treatment of slaves, it would have been right for them to keep their slaves for centuries?
edit: this is not really an attack on islam, more of an attack on MITM weird ideas about how slavery is acceptable given right circumstances.
soul creator
Member
I suppose argument from authority is accepted when the authority is saying things one personally likes, heh.
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